It’s a well-known fact in business that when times are good and business is steady we invest little time in speaking to existing customers and creating new prospects. However when business slows down we begin to panic and focus our attention on our marketing and what’s in the sales pipeline. Rather than panic we recommend using this time to reflect on your business, your customer base, and the profitability of these customers. More importantly clarify what you do as a business to win more prospects and how you get them to buy from you?

So why doesn’t everyone want to buy your products and services? By turning our opening statement into a question we like to challenge are clients with the following set of questions.

Is your service or product clearly differentiated from your competition?

We find many companies describe themselves in a similar way. How many times for example do you read mission statements that contain the words, leading, biggest, best, oldest, and cheapest?

Is your competition winning business from you?

Perhaps your sales pitch isn’t strong enough or your sales pitch sounds like the competitions and the prospective customer can only make the final purchasing decision based on price

Are you up to date on what’s happening in your market place?

In busy times we are all guilty of not keeping ourselves up to date with changes taking place within our market place. Take some time to review what’s happening, read your trade press or attend a trade event or conference to update your industry knowledge.

Talk to your customers

Quite often when speaking to our clients and new prospects they hold strong beliefs about that their customers want from them. However recently we have undertaken customer research projects and the findings don’t often align to the thinking of the business owners. We advocate taking the time out to speak and meet with customers and discover their pain points and challenges so that you do align your offering more effectively.

Know your prospects

By knowing what makes you different and effectively communicating these differences you will begin to attract prospects that can easily recognise that your product or service offering is a match for them.

Exigent Marketing. Specialising in marketing, branding and creative design solutions for SME companies based in Twickenham working with business to business clients in West London, Chiswick, Twickenha, & Teddington as well as technology clients in Reading and Berkshire area. www.exigentmarketing.co.uk